I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 62: Chapter 62: Hard-to-Catch Elite Fish

After dropping Wang Junhe off at home, Gu Nan headed toward the seafood market. He passed the breakwater along the way and decided to check it out. If it was empty, he’d fish there.

When he arrived, the place was empty.

It was past eleven o’clock. Most anglers who had work in the morning had already gone home to rest, and the ones who pulled all-nighters usually didn’t fish here.

Today was June 15th, the 28th of the lunar calendar. The spring tide would arrive in two more days.

Seeing the date, Gu Nan had a sudden realization. ’No wonder Wang Junhe asked me to go sea fishing the day after tomorrow,’ he thought. ’He’s taking advantage of the prime conditions!’

It wasn’t the spring tide just yet, but the date was close, so the waves by the breakwater were still quite large. Consequently, Gu Nan moved to the inner, more sheltered side.

He didn’t care about catching black sea bream or anything like that. He was going to use his daily guaranteed catch ability, which he currently had nineteen charges of.

He instinctively opened the game to take a look and was taken aback to see only elite tasks.

’I’m so used to the daily tasks,’ he thought. ’It feels weird now that they’re suddenly gone.’

Closing the game, Gu Nan picked up his fishing rod, gave it a gentle cast, and started fishing.

Ten-odd seconds passed. The float suddenly disappeared, and the rod bent into a deep arc.

Gu Nan quickly set the hook, then forcefully lifted the rod, keeping the fish from running too far.

The blue set really was something else. His first catch was a big one, and it pulled much harder than the Ugly Country fish in his vehicle.

DING DING DING DING... But as fierce as the fish was, its pull didn’t overpower the drag, causing the reel to let out a series of chimes.

The rod itself would occasionally groan, but it was clearly handling the strain with ease.

If he had been using the green set, the sounds would have been completely different.

Gu Nan pumped the rod upward, then quickly turned the handle to take in a few feet of line.

Judging by the pull, the fish had to be around ten pounds, so locking the drag and horsing it in wouldn’t be a problem.

After three or four minutes, the fish broke the surface not far away, its tail thrashing and making the water go SPLASH! SPLASH!

It was a two-star Black-striped Small Stripes Buri. No wonder it had so much power.

Its stamina was far from exhausted; Gu Nan had simply brute-forced it to the surface.

So he still had to struggle to pump the rod and reel in the line. Whenever the fish had a burst of energy and took off, they would be locked in a stalemate for a moment.

After several more minutes, the fish was finally dragged right up to him.

Gu Nan held the rod in his left hand and grabbed the landing net with his right. Seizing the right moment, he scooped the fish’s head into the net, quickly put down the rod, and then used both hands to haul it onto the breakwater.

Looking at the Black-striped Small Stripes Buri, he had a sudden idea and tried to transfer the fish into his Aquarium.

[Ding! Fish that require bleeding and icing cannot be stored in the Aquarium. All such aquatic products can only be placed in the Iced Fish Vault. The Iced Fish Vault will automatically bleed the fish for convenient transport.]

’Damn, it makes such a clear distinction!’ Gu Nan wasn’t too surprised.

’If all live fish could go into the Aquarium, then what would be the point of the Iced Fish Vault?’

Besides, the automatic bleeding function of the Iced Fish Vault would save him a lot of time.

Then, Gu Nan glanced at the Guidebook and found the entry for the Black-striped Small Stripes Buri had updated: fifty-three centimeters, 11.9 pounds, Giant-class.

Following that logic, anything over fifty-five centimeters should be considered King-class.

’In that case, wouldn’t a Legendary-class have to exceed the maximum recorded length of sixty centimeters for a Black-striped Small Stripes Buri?’

With a slightly better understanding of the fish size classifications, Gu Nan closed the game and stored the fish in the Iced Fish Vault.

Second cast. He continued fishing.

One after another, fish were reeled in and sorted by Gu Nan into either the Aquarium or the Iced Fish Vault.

By the time he was down to his last charge of the daily guaranteed catch, it was already 12:30 a.m.

But from those eighteen fish, Gu Nan had gained a thorough understanding of how the rod’s attributes affected his catches.

The effect of the +30% large fish bonus was obvious. The fish he caught today were indeed much bigger.

At the same time, it seemed that the set’s true potential was only unlocked after being fully assembled.

Before he had the matching line and bait, the ratio of large fish was noticeably lower than it was now. It seemed to be some kind of hidden mechanic.

Furthermore, this bonus seemed to have a much greater effect on low-star fish than on high-star ones.

For example, with four-star fish and up, the biggest he had caught so far was only Large-class; he hadn’t seen a single Giant-class.

In contrast, he had only caught two of the one-star Star Chicken Fish, yet one was Giant-class and the other was King-class.

The King-class one was seventy-six centimeters long and weighed a hefty 18.4 pounds.

A whole night of catching nothing but Giant or Large-class fish had left Gu Nan exhausted. He felt like he’d need another massage to recover his health points.

Thankfully, not all fish could grow that large, or catching those nineteen fish would have taken even longer.

He hadn’t encountered a BOSS today, so it seemed the probability wasn’t very high.

His experience points, however, had increased by a lot. If he kept fishing tomorrow, he should be able to reach level five.

Now only one cast remained. Forget a BOSS; he hadn’t even caught a single Elite-class fish. ’The hook rate for Elite-class fish must be really low,’ he lamented.

But it was already very late, and he had to go to the shop in the morning to film a video for Yi Chen, so Gu Nan decided he would head home after this last cast.

He took a sip of mineral water, picked up his rod, and returned to the edge. With a gentle flick, the baited hook plopped into the water.

Gu Nan waited with rapt attention. With fish biting every ten to twenty seconds, he couldn’t afford to lose focus for even a moment.

A dozen seconds later, WHOOSH! The float was yanked underwater and began racing away.

Gu Nan immediately set the hook with a powerful jerk. ’Just land this one and I can go home!’

But to his surprise, a pull even stronger than the King-class Star Chicken Fish surged through the line.

He’d been fishing all night, horsing in one big fish after another since arriving at the breakwater. Of course he was tired; his hands and arms were sore and weak.

And now, this last fish was just as massive. Gu Nan felt like he couldn’t take it.

Taking a deep breath, he gritted his teeth and hauled back on the rod with all his might.

’I have to land it, whether I feel like I can or not,’ he resolved. ’It’s strong, but it’s not a real BOSS.’

Still, Gu Nan loosened the drag slightly, preparing to let the fish run and tire itself out. It would be less strenuous to land it that way.

The fish was a monster. The moment he loosened the drag, it bolted, and line screamed from the reel.

”!!!”

This was the last thing Gu Nan expected. If he let the fish get too far, it would be even harder to bring it in. He quickly tightened the drag again, though not completely locking it down.

The pressure was back on him, but there was no other choice. He had to dig deep and resume the tug-of-war with the fish.

It was like a Sea King who’d found a new target, only to realize she was a Sea Queen, thus beginning a long, drawn-out battle of wills.

A constant back-and-forth, but in the end, the Sea King proved superior.

It was a pale pink fish. The color was beautiful, but it had a huge mouth that made it look somewhat menacing.

It was even longer than the King-class Star Chicken Fish. Its body seemed slender, but it had a fat belly and a thick back.

No wonder it took him a good twenty-plus minutes to land it. It looked like it weighed over twenty, maybe even thirty pounds.

Gu Nan picked up his large landing net and scooped the exhausted behemoth up. The first thing he did was transfer the fish into the Iced Fish Vault.

He had tried the Aquarium first, but it wouldn’t accept it.

After placing the rod in the cargo bed of his three-wheeler, Gu Nan sat down, took a sip of water to rest, and opened the Guidebook to read about his latest catch.

It was ranked second from the top, and the reward was one hundred Gold Coins... but it was only a one-star fish?

’The Gold Coin reward for the Elite Guidebook seems to be fifty higher. I wonder if it’s double the base amount or just a fixed increase.’

His current balance was 1,400 Gold Coins. Still a long way from the purple set, so he didn’t need to worry about it for now.

Still, Gu Nan was very surprised that this pink fish was only a one-star.

’Based on its good looks alone, it should be delicious,’ he mused. ’I thought I’d caught a three-star fish at the very least!’

But when he saw the fish’s name, he had a flash of insight. ’Oh, so it’s the Red Fork-tailed Sea Bream from Elite Task Two!’